Re: GAK/weak crypto rationale?

intercepts requested and authorized in the past year. As I recall, the number was quite small - around 12K [?]. Someone had found this out through an FOIA request, perhaps, (my recollection of it is poor). It was

I think it's about 1200.

not a large number, anyway. I must conclude that the actual number of intercepts is much, much larger than they are saying, and that they must be getting what they perceive to be good intel from all this snooping.

A more cautious conclusion would be would be that the importance (to the LEA's) of the busts made with crypto is much larger than the numbers suggest. You could interpret that a lot of ways: I suspect that high-profile career-enhancing cases are highly dependent on wiretaps.